PHILADELPHIA -- The Eagles have won three games, all of them close, real close, close enough that Andy Reid could have seen unemployment from there without a telescope.

The Eagles have won three games, not two, not one, not zero, all of which could have been possible given their defense, their special teams, their offensive line.

The Eagles have won three games, each with a blast of late leadership, each helping to buffer Reid from that 8-8 record that the owner has said would cost him his job.

The Eagles have won three games because they have Michael Vick.

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So why was it again that as he exhaled during a two-week layoff, wondering about a two-game losing streak, that Reid was supposed to consider a quarterback change? And why was it that he was so popularly encouraged to trust a season to a rookie that had 87 chances to be selected in the last draft before the Eagles said, 'What the heck,' with pick No. 88? Why was the Eagles' coach urged to play Nick Foles, with his zero regular-season NFL starts, with the offensive line loose and the NFC East tight?

What is Reid supposed to be running -- a Super Bowl march, or a developmental squad? So of course he stayed with Vick when he was shaking the branches of the organizational tree. Vick gives him a better chance to win than any handy alternative, and may yet prove to be a Pro Bowl level quarterback.

"I absolutely think so," Reid said Wednesday, on the field at the NovaCare Complex. "Now, you can't turn the football over. You can't do that. That doesn't work in this league, not on the numbers we are at right now."

Vick has made 13 turnovers. So there is that. But Reid said there were things the Eagles could do to correct that, before a typical, unnecessary refusal to share them out loud. If (when?) Vick improves his ball-handling, the Eagles will have a quarterback who has led five impressive fourth-quarter scoring drives in six games, who is accurate when he needs to be accurate, who is tough to catch when he wants to run, and who has passionate support in the locker room. Reid, who made the loud change of defensive coordinators, could not afford to rock the operation with quarterback upheaval, too.

"I'm not sure anybody in the locker room was wondering that," LeSean McCoy said. "We all pretty much knew that Mike was the quarterback. He's our guy and he's our leader."

The Eagles have struggled to finish earlier-game drives, and Vick's turnovers have disqualified him from any hip-hip-hoorays or early-season Pro Bowl buzz. But he is more the reason that they have won three games than he is that they have lost that many, too.

"The game of football does not change," Vick said. "You just have to make good decisions in the moment and you've got to protect the football. That's been the only thing that has been my problem and the only thing I had to deal with. It sounds like it is easy. And sometimes it can be. But sometimes under pressure you make decisions that you shouldn't make.

"I just have to be conscious of the moment."

Reid could turn to Foles before season's end, diving under the move for professional cover. But that would be only if the Eagles were out of contention and he was dangling the move in front of Jeffrey Lurie as if to remind the arms-crossed owner that he has had a history of developing quarterbacks and should be trusted to do so again.

By then, it would be too late. It's not too late now. It is early, in fact. And the Eagles already have three victories banked, three that they would not have had with a less experienced quarterback.

Under pressure, with time running out, when plenty else was swirling around him in the last two weeks, at least Andy Reid was conscious enough of the moment to get that one right.